Category Archives: Motorcycle – NY to SP

New Photos, Videos, Questions and a Best Of by Marc!!

New videos for days 54, 55, 56 and 57 have been uploaded!!
New photos for days 55, 56, and 57 have been added!!

Questions for those avid readers of this blog:

1. Has the text become less interesting?
2. Have the videos become more interesting?
3. What would you change, add, remove?

Keep thinking of a better way to present this story once it is complete…

AND Marc’s compilation of the best moments so far! Really cool 🙂

Day 57 – Mancora to Chiclayo

It was great waking up with the ocean right at the doorstep of the room. Went out early in the morning to take some pictures and a quick dip in the ocean then the swimming pool – felt really good after such a long day yesterday.
After breakfast we hit the road and immediately saw that this region of Northern Peru along the coast is a big desert. The roads are quite good and quite scenic.
We took a quick break around 1pm and kept on heading south towards Chiclayo.
At one point we went by a gas station and Marc looked back to see if I needed to fill up. Judging by the frequency of gas stations we had seen so far I thought I’d be OK until the next one. Big mistake.
Yes – today I ran out of gas – the only complain I have about my KTM Adventure 990 – the tank is a little too small – 5.1 gallons.
We were in the middle of the desert and I just knew that I was going to run out of gas – we slowed down to see if we could make it but after 60km with the reserve light on the bike simply shut down.
We signaled a car and he stopped but unfortunately it was a diesel pick-up. He told us that there was gas half an hour down the road and would be glad to take one of us – the other should stay with the bikes watching them. We decided against that because it would be faster if Marc went on the bike and brought some fuel back.
Fortunately there was a lady selling gas 4km down the road! So Marc brought one gallon back and we then put another gallon each.
We arrived in Chiclayo pretty early during the day but the next town that had hotels was 3 hours away so we basically had to stay here.
Not a very attractive town but from we have seen along the road here it’s quite nice.
We attracted quite a crowd when we were unpacking the bikes – they are always amazed at the size of the bikes, how fast they go and always want to know how much they cost. They are also quite surprised when I start talking in Spanish to them… they always assume that we are language-deficient gringos 🙂

From Motorcycle NY to SP


Day 56 – Riobamba, Ecuador to Mancora, Peru

LOOOOOONG day – started at 9am and ended at 9pm!
Good riding this morning along the mountains of Ecuador – quite chilly
– and high up – we could notice that the bikes had a lot less power
and consumed less gasoline at these altitudes.
Around noon we started the descent towards the coast – the sky was
gray the entire day but fortunately no rain.
We had around 300 miles to cover today since between Riobamba and
Mancora there isn't much in terms of tourism at all – it is quite a
rural area with poor villages along the way.
The border… well… I was expecting the worst since we never
officially left Colombia or entered Ecuador.
A pair of helpers aided us through the whole process. After about 3
hours and some expensive bribes we were able to get the exit stamp
from Ecuador to get into Peru and the documentation for the
motorcycles to enter Peru, which only came after the Ecuadorian
customs also got a bribe. We were at fault but some good negotiation
of the fees were necessary – their initial figures were always cut
down substantially…
In any case – we got to Mancora at night – well worth the trip!!
There were so many hotel options that we had a hard time deciding
which hotel to stay in. We finally decided on one and it turned out to
be the best in town – very nice.
Slow internet so you'll have to wait for the videos of the past two
days 🙂

From Motorcycle NY to SP


Day 55 1/2 – Quito to Riobamba

Marc's bike got ready around 3pm. We geared up and hit the road.
Initially the weather cooperated but then the grey clouds covered the
entire scenery and drenched us to the bones, not to mention that we
are at 3000 meters high (9000 feet) so it was pretty chilly!
We got to Riobamba still during daylight and found a town busting with
activity. Many small hotels and restaurants.
We followed the guide book's suggestion and stayed in a hotel just
outside of town called El Troje.
No high speed internet so updating from my iPhone and a roaming data
connection 🙂
The hotel is putting on a traditional dance and music show for the
guests in half hour. Should be interesting 🙂

From Motorcycle NY to SP


Day 55 – Quito

Went to the dealer really early and got them to start working straight
away. The "automatico" of the starter – I'm guessing it translates to
the induction coils – got burnt.
Fortunately there was a shop close to the dealer that had one for us
to purchase.
But this entire process takes a LONG time for a while – it's 1:30pm.
We're having lunch and will go back shortly. The plan is to get to
Riobamba today – about 3 hours from here.

Day 54 – Ibarra to Quito

Day started well with the hotel guys cleaning our bikes and us getting Marc’s starter to work.
We looked at the starter and the wire casings were all melted leaving the metal exposed and thereby shorting the circuit. We put some electrical tape around the wires and it fired up!
On the way though, the problem came back to haunt us. We were on our way to Quito’s BMW dealer anyway to have it checked out.
The ride was beautiful though not as nice as yesterday’s and full of tolls, which equated to nearly perfect roads.
We completely missed the line of the equator – we wanted to stop and take some pictures but we just kept going – wanted to have a picture of me with a foot on the Northern hemisphere and the other on the Southern 🙂 Next time I guess!
In Quito we got the BMW dealer quite easily – it was right on the main road before getting into town.
They took us in and told us that it would take an hour before the mechanic could look at it.
In the meantime we went into town to look for a guide book – the one we had mailed to us keeps on getting delayed – or we are too fast for the mail service here… we just found out that it arrived in Medellin today! One week late…
The town was nice, we had some lunch and after being misdirected SEVERAL times we found the book store with the tourism guide for South America. We still cannot figure out why we left the US without one. We had one for Central America but not for South America… go figure.
When we came back to the BMW dealer we found this:

From Motorcycle NY to SP

HAHAHAHA – just kiddding!! This is NOT Marc’s bike 🙂 Feel sorry for the owner of this one though!

“Come back tomorrow afternoon to pick it up” they calmly said.
“No – we need it today! We are on a trip and we need the motorcycle!”
“Ok – maybe tomorrow morning…”

After some hours of hanging around and making sure that the mechanic was working on it we saw that we would have to stay a night in Quito. As we were about to leave, to our surprise the mechanic said he had fixed it!
They told us that the guys in Costa Rica who installed the starter had not isolated the battery cable properly so it was touching the casing of the starter and thereby shorting it out and melting all the wires. So it was not a problem with the “German Engineering” but human error really… even more frustrating I think because it could have been avoided.

It was too late to hit the road so we came into town to find a hotel… we stopped in one hotel, but it was full…
As we mounted the bikes to go to another one Marc’s bike did not start…

We found a hotel (Nu House) and will go back to the dealer tomorrow morning 🙁

We also ate at a great restaurant called “La Boca del Lobo” where we chatted with two girls who had been traveling for 6 months around South America – one from Canada and one from the US – they both told us that Bolivia was the major highlight of the trip. 

Day 53 – Popayan, Colombia to Ibarras, Ecuador

Another amazing day – congratulations Colombia!!
Morning was a little wet but then we started climbing up and up and up and around and around around!
The scenaries were breathtaking and as you thought you´d seen the most beautiful scenery ever, you see another one that surpasses them all. Incredible.
Then we hit the border… well… no border… no one stopped us so we just kept going… the customs guy just waived us through and no one asked for any documentation. We might run into some problems leaving Ecuador but we´ll just have to find out 🙂
We rode for another hour or so and then Marc suddenly stopped – he was in desperate need to use the men´s room… the place was colorful and lit up by neon signs… girls walking around… you do the math… I took a look around while Marc was doing his business… US$40 for the full monty… geees…
Further down the road we saw two or three more similar establishments.
We are now in a hotel that was recommended by a Colombian guide book we bought in Bogota – El Conquistador – no girls here – hehehe
The connection is dial-up – 36kbps – yes – the computer dial a phone number, you hear that fax machine noise and then you are connected… I think the last time I used a dial up was back in 1998! So no videos or photos tonight – I honestly don´t know when we´ll get a good connection now.
Tomorrow morning we´ll go by Quito – Marc´s start button is not working – I´m getting a good workout pushing his bike to jump start it 🙂 It stopped working today, worked for a couple more times and now it´s not working again.
After Quito we really don´t know where we´re going to sleep since it will all depend on how long it will take to fix the bike and what recommendations we get there. Hopefully I will have some connectivity at the dealer to at least upload the photos. The video usually takes about 4 hours to upload… and today´s video will be a little long I think just because the views were soooo great!

From Motorcycle NY to SP


Day 52 – Manizales to Popoyan

A LOT of miles today – made up for the relatively small amount of miles we did yesterday.

This morning coming out of Manizales I was ecstatic with the road and the scenery – Colombia is one of the prettiest so far in my opinion – it’s lush, mountainous, well kept and great people.
On a more inappropriate note, I’ve heard several times that the Colombian women are the prettiest in the world, something that I have not attested to just yet. Not really fair to judge on just a few days in the country and not really knowing where to go. One thing we can attest to is that, well, there is something in the water here that makes girls grow quite large breasts! Seriously – quite curious. No photos – sorry 🙂
Going back to the riding – another great day riding – NO rain today and LOTS of attention from the locals – they simply love the big bikes and also LOVE the GPS of all things 🙂
Getting into Popoyan a car pulled up offering his help – he’s a biker as well and led us to the hotel we had found earlier on the internet – Dan Monastero – another very nice hotel!
Here’s the video with more info – seems like I am repeating myself on the video and text here:

Day 51 – Medellin to Manizales

Another WOW day of riding… but first we went to the BMW dealer to get Marc’s bike which had brand new tires on.

Leaving Medellin we took a wrong turn but looking at the GPS it seemed like an OK deviation.
Turned out to be a very long route and off-road for the most part.
It was a lot of fun and gorgeous mountain views – truly a privilege to be able to drive through these roads.
It also meant very slow progress towards Armenia, our original destination though.
Once we got back on the highway the roads continued to be winding and amazingly beautiful.
We got some rain but not that bad – we were more worried about getting to a larger town before it got dark.
We ended up in Manizales, which is not too far from Armenia. We never saw so many motorcycles shops in one town! We stopped at a shop which had the exact same bike that Marc has and started talking to the owner – he was closing shop so he took us to a hotel – just like yesterday – which I just realized I didn’t write about yesterday.
When we got to Medellin Marc pulled over to see if he could find the BMW dealer – Ruta 40. A cab driver was trying to figure out where the address was when I looked down the street and saw it right there!! We drove up to it and being 7 at night we didn’t expect to find anyone there but to our surprise they were there!! Very cool guys – Mauricio Gallo – the owner even took us to a hotel he recommended after we left Marc’s bike at the shop so that it could be serviced first thing in the morning 🙂


New feature today – Marc found this very cool site called EveryTrail.com where you can upload the data of the GPS – very cool – hit the play button to see how different our speed was on the dirt road vs. the paved road 🙂 Don’t know why it says that the trip duration was of 11 hours though…

Nov 21

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

Day 50 – Bogota to Medellin

Great roads today – tons and tons of winding mountain roads – made for a long day though – from around 11am to 7pm riding pretty much non-stop.
This morning we were on a quest to find tires for Marc’s bike since the planned ones in Medellin did not arrive. We tried to call and locate the BMW dealer in Bogota with no success so we went for it and were going to try our luck in Medellin.
On the way out of town we pass in FRONT of BMW dealer AND they had tires for his bike!! We bought them immediately, strapped them on to Marc’s bike and headed out of town through some serious traffic.

From Motorcycle NY to SP

The “highway” just outside of Bogota was quite small to the point where we thought we were on the wrong route – but as a local motorcyclist said – follow the trucks, which the call “mulas” or donkeys – and you’ll get to Medellin.
Then we started hitting the mountains! Very very cool roads. TONS of trucks but it’s actually fun to overtake them. We went through 3 passes, i.e., up and down mountain roads. Very cool… I was “in the zone” with the the bike and all the turns 🙂
There were quite a few mud slides along the way and one accident which along they way which we overtook by going along the side of the road around a police car… in the process Marc’s front tire slid into a groove and his bike got stuck… then all of the sudden we were
surrounded by people who all lifted the bike up and got it out of the groove! It was great! Thanks guys! Or should I thank little Jose, big Jose, and Jose’s son, like Marc did in an earlier post.
We got to Medellin a little later than we had hoped (dark) but it all looked kosher – it ALL looks very safe here actually – there are tons of military personnel on the road – makes you feel very safe – plus everyone tells us that the situation is very much under control here
in Colombia.
Medellin looks great – my first impression is that it’s much better than Bogota – let’s see what the nightlife has to offer.
By the way, we went to Harry’s Bar last night – one of the places that were recommended the most to us – and it definitely was worth it.
Reminded us of Sao Paulo actually – very nice food and ambience.

By the way number 2 – lost my sunglasses and my good set of earphones broke – again. Have an extra pair of sunglasses and of earphones… but really liked the ones I had 🙁 I’m pretty sure I lost them when we got into Bogota – I had them hanging from my shirt and then went into the cab and put the seatbelt on – that must’ve knocked it out of place…

From Motorcycle NY to SP